Content is at the core of what inbound marketing is – it’s what attracts people to your brand, product or service, versus you needing to go out and find them. Think of content as the honey which attracts the flies!

Because it’s easier to start something new when you have a process, I offer you this method of creating content.

Step 1: Brainstorm themes for your content

You don’t want to write only about your product or service – would you want to read three blog posts a week about your product? So your content will cover both your product/service and adjacent or related themes – in some distance outside of your core. How far out you go depends on your product and industry; in a highly specialized area you may want to keep things fairly tight, but in a broader marketplace you can go pretty wide and still maintain relevancy to your company.

Themes are not titles or specific posts, they’re the overarching ideas that all of your content will address.

For example – some themes for my business, a digital marketing agency, are:

Marketing to teens, tweens & parents

How to create content/inbound marketing & social media strategy

How to use specific social media platforms

How inbound and digital marketing intersect with other marketing

Examples of companies doing content & social media well

Step 2: Brainstorm topics for your themes

Now you’re going to drill down – you’re going to develop some draft titles and specific ideas for your content. Choose one of your themes and come up with as many different topics as you can for that theme.

Some of the types of content you might create include:

Make a list

Answer a question

Talk about the competition

Use the “vs.” format

Write about “the best”

Outline a process

Provide examples

Curate other people’s examples or content

For my theme of “How to create content/inbound marketing & social media strategy,” topics could include:

4 ways to use inbound marketing to solve customer problems

How to involve your whole team in your content creation

Why content creation saves time & money vs. traditional advertising

How to use influencers in your content creation strategy

Why you shouldn’t use bloggers as your social media agency

Step 3: Determine content types

This part will probably be pretty easy – make a list of all of the content types you currently create/offer and those you know you want to create. Content types could include:

Blog post

Video (short-form, like Instagram and Vine, and long-form, like YouTube videos)

Images

Podcast topic

Email

eBook

Whitepaper

Facebook update

Tweet

Slideshare

Webinar

Step 4: Align topics to content types

For each topic that you create, assign it to a specific content type.

Now comes the really hard part: you have to create the content! Once you have a list of topics you like, and know what kind of content you want to create for that topic, add that topic + content type to your editorial calendar.

Get the Content Creation Worksheet

I’ve created a brand-new worksheet which can help you with the brainstorming and content alignment process. Download it here, and please let me know how it works for you!

Stephanie Schwab

Stephanie has 20 years' experience in digital media and 12 in social media and content marketing, and has been blogging personally and professionally since 2004. She loves to try new social media platforms but mostly maintains her first love, Twitter, @stephanies.